Interview
From emerging talents to today's brightest stars, we interview musicians from around the globe.
Presenting Great Music: Adam Hopkins and Scott Clark of Out of Your Head Records
by Don Ball
It is difficult to make a living as a musician, especially as a jazz musician, and even more so as an avant-garde/free jazz musician. Venues are hard to come by, especially outside of major cities. The COVID pandemic made things worse, closing many of the few places that were available for live jazz. Even putting out recordings is a difficult task. Often, a musician will submit their work to various labels, hoping for a bite. And with so many of ...
Continue ReadingMeet Jack DeJohnette
by Craig Jolley
This article was first published on All About Jazz in March 2002. One of the most creative and propulsive musicians in the history of jazz, drummer/pianist/composer Jack DeJohnette has played with most leading-edge jazz musicians of the time, usually at their request. He invariably brings out another side and a freshness in whoever he plays with. He is most noted as a drummer, but those who have heard him on his piano record (Landmark) and elsewhere realize he ...
Continue ReadingDickie Landry: From Lafayette to the New York Loft Scene
by Thomas Cole
Reknowned in the region for music that reflects its various cultural influences, Dickie Landry is one of the older players still active in Louisiana. Arriving in his home state for the interview, AAJ called Landry to check in. Quickly answering the phone and to the usual greeting of “how are you today," he immediately responded, “Alive!" Not to be taken for granted, life hangs by an ever-tenuous thread at his not so tender age of 86. Early Days ...
Continue ReadingAnton Mikhailov: Raising the Stakes
by Katchie Cartwright
Anton Mikhailov currently lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. He was born and classically trained in Ukraine, then moved to Moscow in 2022, during the pandemic. His engaging debut album, Today Yesterday (Self Produced) was released in August of 2025. All About Jazz spoke with the young pianist and composer in October to find out more about his physical and musical journey. Today YesterdayAll About Jazz: You describe the project as a “compositional journey--written across several transformative years--to explore what ...
Continue ReadingAnthony Jackson and Yiorgos Fakanas: Interspirits
by Ian Patterson
This article was first published on All About Jazz on May 11, 2010. It may come as a surprise to anyone wading through bass guitar giant Anthony Jackson's discography, which mind-bogglingly totals over three thousand recordings, that he has never recorded a solo album. The legendary bassist--who has played with an astonishing variety of artists of the caliber of Chick Corea, Roberta Flack, the O'Jays, Buddy Rich, Paul Simon, Chaka Khan, Michel Petrucciani, Michel Camilo, Pat Metheny, Quincy ...
Continue ReadingShuffle Demons: They Are for Real... Really
by Dean Nardi
On the Shuffle Demons' Are You Really Real (Alma Records 2025), the uncategorizable Toronto band knits together traditional jazz, modern funk playfulness, blues, rap and the sensuality of Prince. For an ensemble that has been a going concern for 40 years, they maintain an optimistic, let's-go-for-something-new outlook, reflected in their flamboyant retro clothing that resembles that worn by harmonizing quartets with 1950s haircuts, looking so sharp they could pierce the heart of a bureaucrat. Born out of busking on Toronto's ...
Continue ReadingZlatko Kaučič: The Discipline of Freedom
by Neri Pollastri
Fresh from the release of the four-CD box set Inklings (Fundacja Sluchaj, 2024) and on the eve of the 15th edition of the Brda Contemporary Music Festival--which he founded and still directs--drummer, percussionist, composer and educator Zlatko Kaučič continues a career spanning over four decades, marked by collaborations with many of Europe's greatest improvisers. A passionate musician and a frank, thoughtful person attuned to the issues of our time, Kaučič spoke to us with the same openness that characterizes his ...
Continue ReadingFranck Amsallem: A Jazz Life From New York To Paris
by Frank Housh
Franck Amsallem is a Paris-based pianist, singer, and composer educated in the United States. His debut recording, Out A Day (OMD, 1992) with Gary Peacock and Bill Stewart was recently reissued and remastered (streaming only), and his most recent album The Summer Knows (Un été 42) was released May 10, 2025. The Summer Knows (David Wong, bass and Kush Abadey, drums) includes song the theme song from the 1971 movie “The Summer of '42" composed by French composer ...
Continue ReadingGary Bartz Is Nobody's Jazz Musician
by Bridget A. Arnwine
Gary Bartz is nobody's jazz musician. What he has built and created as an artist with a career that spans six decades defies labels, especially ones that have storied racist connotations and otherwise derogatory origins like the word jazz. He is a composer of the finest order and as gifted as the most revered names in classical music. Defining his work as improvised music is too simple a term to fully capture the essence of what Bartz and “jazz" musicians ...
Continue ReadingMichala Østergaard-Nielsen: The Poetic Vibrations of Drumming
by Dean Nardi
Michala Østergaard-Nielsen is a jazz drummer from Denmark, a country with a rich tradition of women playing drums. Once during a lesson with Gerald Cleaver, she was told you could either play drums upon sound or upon a pattern. “That really opened the doors for me to not think just the technical things, but listen to it as a sound," she said, looking back on what she gained from these lessons. Østergaard-Nielsen had classical training on the piano ...
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